Disciplined Agile Delivery - Scott Ambler - Recorded February 2, 2018

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FULL
TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)

00:00:29;19
- 00:02:28;02

Rick Morris: It's
been a crazy week as always here at R Squared Consulting. We've been in
Nashville Tennessee or actually Columbia Tennessee closing up to Nashville over
the last week working with a client through their Agile transformation. So you
know it's going to be a timely discussion today because of that as always.
Coming up we're going to be in Memphis next week for a couple of days doing
some training and then the big event will be the week after that the 16th through
the 22nd will be in Orlando at the John Maxwell Team international Maxwell
certification event. So have a lot of people that are looking forward to that.
Can't wait to see you guys there the 25th and 26. We'll be back in Birmingham
doing some training there. And then of course March 10th. through the 16th is
when we're headed out to Costa Rica with John looking at the transformation of
that country. So we we're super super excited and very excited to have you guys
along for the ride. So let's get into today's show and based on the Twitter
traffic and Facebook traffic and all the e-mails that have been getting so many
people are super excited to hear from this gentleman. As am I. Because he is a
senior consulting partner of his organization and he's been working with
organizations around the world to help them improve their software processes.
It provides training coaching and mentoring and disciplined Agile in lean
strategies at both the project and organizational level. He's a cocreator of
the Agile modeling and Agile data methodologies and the discipline Agile
framework. He's also the co author of several books including an executive's
guide to discipline Agile framework disciplined Agile delivery refactoring
databases Agile modeling Agile databased techniques and the object primary
Third Edition. He blogs regularly at disciplineagiledelivery.com and his
company's home page is the same as his name scottambler.com. Scott how are you
sir.

00:02:28;02
- 00:02:28;29

Scott Ambler: I'm
fantastic.

00:02:29;29
- 00:03:10;03

Rick Morris: And
we are ready to go. We're so excited to have you on The Work/Life Balance. And
quite frankly we've been talking a lot about Agile lately and certainly with
the Agile Almanac book that came out and I know that you provided some advanced
readings and worked with one of the authors on the chapters specifically around
discipline as well. So since the launch of that book we've had a few of our
other authors on here and I've just been in this Agile mood so I couldn't be more
excited to have you on the phone and start to dive into some of these
questions. But if you would just introduce yourself again and just talk a
little bit about what does that mean. You know discipline Agile framework and
in what is really business agility.

00:03:11;02
- 00:04:42;16

Scott Ambler: Yeah.
So I myself my organization we work with companies around the world to help
them understand this Agile and lean stuff and frankly the two groups are. So
it's not just about Agile lean what we do. But you know 95 percent of it is and
we're all about helping organizations get better become more effective serve
the customers better. So the framework actually captures our observations of
what works in practice and basically we're with that framework. We're trying to
answer the question how does it help all these Agile techniques and lean
techniques and strategies and even some more traditional ones fit together.
What are the tradeoffs that you're making. So when when you do each technique
when don't you have it together. To what extent should you do. So we just pitched
disciplined Agile as what we call a process decision framework. We're providing
lightweight guidance to help organizations and teams understand the process
decisions and the organization starts some cases that they're making and to
make better decisions. We're unique in this respect. There's a lot of other you
know there's a lot of other methods out there that are prescriptive and they
say this is the best way of doing things. Whereas our approach is more along
the lines of Well it depends on and here's what it depends on and you need to
decide for yourself. I think it's a very robust and mature way of looking at
the world. And we focus on IT a lot want to write to you of course as you know
every business is a software business days.

00:04:42;16
- 00:05:17;19

Scott Ambler: But
we also realized that there is the rest of the organization also needs to be
effective. So you know we we have advice on portfolio management and finance
legal and security and all those other things. We're really trying to help
organizations become Agile businesses and to support business agility and the
way we define business agility is the ability to react to the marketplace and
to serve your customers effectively and to react to these changing needs and
and sometimes even predict their needs and their lives and to serve them
better.

00:05:17;29
- 00:05:24;09

Scott Ambler: Because
if you don't if you don't like your customers somebody else will. And they'll
eat your lunch. And you know this is not what you want.

00:05:25;29
- 00:05:49;27

Rick Morris: So
talk to me for second about it. I find a lot of people that catch what I
consider the age bug. You know they seem very resistant to Agile and then they
finally start to open up to it. And then once they fully get it they're all in
right and they catch that Agile bug. They're running through what caused you to
catch that. That Agile bug What made you just start looking at Agile as a whole
in the beginning.

00:05:50;22
- 00:08:21;15

Scott Ambler: Yeah.
So I think it was disillusionment with these more heavyweight traditional
approaches. So in the 90s I was pretty big on a CMMI ally. And you know trying
to understand the bigger picture and I was actively working to organizations to
adopt these heavier techniques and I drank that kool aid and I saw it and in
many cases I saw just scale and fail and fail and it was all wonderful theory
and it really shows you know in an ideal world it all would have worked. But
the world's not ideal and the end it just these heavyweight techniques just
didn't work out. So I was in the late 90s. I was fairly disillusioned. And you
know I speak at conferences so I get to hang out with a bunch of really smart
people and sort of all the conference years ago and I guess was it was probably
1999. And I went to a talk by Kent Beck about extreme programming and he it
nailed it. He it just it just spoke to this that you know what the stuff that
became what we now know is Agile. It spoke to me and he had this me a very
pragmatic and lightweight and realistic approach to software development and I
realized that it just tweaked right there and said wow he's onto something.
This is it. And in earlier years I also had the pleasure of working with Geoff
Sutherland who's one of the fathers of the scrum and he had tried to sell me on
scrum. And at the time I didn't quite get it. And it seemed like some good
ideas but it didn't play well with me and it wasn't until I really started you
know I got this training from Kent Beck that I really sort of understood Oh
this is where these guys are coming from. And then it just took off from there
and my focus at the time was that I was big on modeling still am and also big
on data database stuff. And I led the development of the Agile modeling
methodology. We focused on modeling and occupation and how do you address the
database and data stop using as well as well as little as the development that in
the early days of Agile and really for the you know cracked a few hard nuts I
guess you would say. And it really spoke to me and was applying this in
practice and it worked well and it worked phenomenally well and a lot better
than the some of the more traditional techniques that we're all used to at the
time.

00:08:23;04
- 00:09:24;28

Rick Morris: I
appreciate that description. And what I'm going to be doing you know throughout
today just just for fun and I think or even pre-warned you that when you and I
first met each other and talked to each other. But you know I love to throw out
things that I hear as I'm leading transformations or working with clients or
have run into other Agilists that say these things that we just love to get
your gut reaction to that. If I could. So we haven't set any this up I'm going
to hit you cold with it. So if you need a second I'm good with it as well. But
you know you mentioned scrum. I thought that was a great introduction there as
well. And so you know I'm working with an organization currently that that has
chosen a Agilist trainer that that's pushing them through scrum and today and
over the last couple of days really I keep hearing will Agile is not going to
work for COBOL for COBOL development because COBOL just takes so long and we
are essentially reengineering code every time that we see it. And some of that
code can be 10 years old. What would you say to an organization like that.

00:09:25;25
- 00:11:32;29

Scott Ambler: Yeah
I heard this all the time and it's complete and utter B.S.. So the reality is
you know to be fair you know there are some COBOL development tools aren't
quite as good as you know in a Java and in .net world you know but to be fair
with that but they are pretty good. And I think the and I start with tools
because you know that thought as an excuse. But the real issue is one of
culture and you know duty's COBOL developers didn't want to work in is more Agile
manner. Do they do that get it. Have they been pushed. And I think the the I'm
an old COBOL guy I did a couple years ago and the last one of my speakers here
is that. We haven’t been pushing the COBOL developers of the world at all for
several decades now. You know they were pushing a little bit for the Y2K stuff
but for the most part it's just sort of cruising along. Everybody's happy with
them. And now we're running into this in this spot where these guys really are
about to retire and while they are retiring and it's not looking good for a lot
of organizations because there is a huge investment of COBOL which is not going
to go away anytime soon probably never will. And yet we need to we need to
evolve this code. We need to certainly to maintain it and we need to do
something about that. I think as the younger you are the younger generation you
know the Java and the dot net programmers of the world and you know many others
as they are motivated to move into COBOL they're going to bring their Agile
techniques along with them. And I think right now you take the average Java
programmer the .net programmer you drop them into the COBOL world and they'll
be horrified by some of the practices that are still common there. So I don't
believe at all my experience is that you can do quite you know very Agile
development in the COBOL world. But it does take time and you need to train the
people you need to go to them all up. But it is possible. So I wouldn't accept
as an excuse at all.

00:11:33;16
- 00:12:10;15

Rick Morris: and
that's fantastic because we did not either. So the pushing is is exactly right.
And making them understand that you know regardless of its six or seven week
development theory then that doesn't mean we still can't craft user stories or
things that can be done in sprints so that we can see progress and make sure
that there's change and so we started to walk through that as well. But I
appreciate you allow me to hit you cold with that. We're going to go ahead and
take our first break right here. You are on the line with Scott Ambler. And in
fact if you like to dial in and ask the question this guy directly as well
listen for the number on the break right after these commercials you're
listening into The Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris.

00:15:06;09
- 00:15:16;16

Rick Morris: And
we're back to The Work/Life Balance here on another Friday on the Voice America
business network. And we are lucky lucky to have Mr. Scott Ambler here with us.

00:15:16;16
- 00:15:47;05

Rick Morris: And
you know Scott I'm first of all I can't thank you enough for appearing on the
show. And you know hopefully we can monopolize your time a lot more in the
future. But you know as Agile is really starting to take hold here a lot of
companies are you know trying to do and trying to do it poorly. And so what I'd
love for them to understand directly from you know one of the cofounders of
this is where did this disciplined Agile framework come from and how did you
guys really develop this.

00:15:48;08
- 00:17:50;25

Scott Ambler: Yeah
definitely. So it came out of IBM. Actually I was the chief methodologist for
I.T. at IBM rational for six years and myself my team including business
partners such as Mark Lyons who's now my business partner. We were we work with
organizations around the world to understand this Agile lean stuff. And we
started seeing common patterns and we started seeing that new organizations
that had pretty much figured it out were still struggling with some basic
issues and the ones that have figured it out or were on the way were spending a
lot of time in a lot of effort doing so. And they're all basicly coming up with
the same same sort of thing. And we also noticed that everybody is doing it
differently and which is a very important observation that every person every
team everywhere and organization is unique and they will have unique structures
they will have unique ways of working unique processes. Although there's still
commonality between them. So anyway so we were sort of noticing this and it
became pretty clear to us that there was a need for a framework and Agile
framework that reflected these observations. So we started developing what
eventually became we originally dismasted delivery and analysis evolved into
into just been Agile as we moved beyond sort of ? but basically all this was
happening in 2009 2010 and then in 2012 we published the first book. So you
could say that from a public facing point of view that was just an Agile 1.0
and a couple of years later in 2015 that is Agile to came out when we started
expanding that and officially started addressing I.T. and then in 2017 that few
months ago we released 3.0 with where we look at enterprise issues as well as
sort of a full business agility gambit. And yeah I can give a call of IBM. They
were very kind and they donated their rights to the consortium in 2013 in order
to make this public.

00:17:50;26
- 00:18:30;29

Scott Ambler: So
they were very generous in a lot in the way they supported us and this was just
it was very good very good thing for them to give

Rick Morris:
that is very cool and something that doesn't happen as often as I think it
should especially because innovation comes from you know teamwork team sharing
and such large organizations like that I mean they're facing huge issues
especially with the market demand and everything else that's coming out with
that. I appreciate that as well. I was a former IBM are back in the day as
well. So in the book which is very interesting you describe a racing metaphor
though can you tell me what that is.

00:18:32;13
- 00:21:29;09

Scott Ambler: Yes.
So what the racing metaphor it is a basic observation that the actual software
community has really gotten good at building great Agile software development
teams. So this to me is like an engine engine of a car a racing car and we're
good at tuning it getting better you know better productivity out of them you
know better quality we really are good at building the racing car engines. But
then what we do is because we're focused so focused on software development we
kick this awesome racing car engine and we plug it into our organizational
tractor and it's a big surprise that we're not winning the race. And what we
really need is a racing car so the racing car in the metaphor is what we call
discipline dev ops. So when you look at the full picture of solution delivery
to operations of it and you know full round trip. And by bringing all
enterprise issues such as security and data management and all that it's your
stuff. So it's a little more than what we typically hear in the the developer
or dev ops picture but having a great racing car isn't sufficient either
because anybody can go buy a racing car but that doesn't mean you've got the
skills to drive it. So in order to be successful you not only do you need a car
but you need a team you need a great race car driver you need a pit crew. We
all need to be working together effectively to get the job done in this with
this one as we like to is all of us. So we need to look at the and we need to
go beyond software development and go beyond dev ops which we're starting to
see now in the dev ops community. I think they're starting to realize oh wait a
minute this is not the full picture is only part of the overall picture and we
really need to tune the rest of I.T. and then. But that's still not sufficient
either because if you've got a great race car and a great race car team you
often need a race you need you need somewhere or some opportunity to make money
with this great I.T. department. And that's what the rest of the enterprise is
all about. So how can the how can the business leverage I.T. in order to be
successful in the marketplace to make money to have these value streams that
they offer to their customers and to be able to react and be effective. So the
metaphor really goes to the four layers of the of the framework and basic
argues that you even look at the whole picture. If you want to be successful
and I think a lot of Agile a lot of Agile coaches and consultants are really
because their focus is on software development. They're really sort of selling
themselves short on the organization's short because if you know if you don't
deal with the entire range of challenges that we face in these organizations
and it's always a moving target you know these are complex adaptive systems
we're dealing with then your transformation efforts your improvement efforts
will probably run aground and this is why we see so many challenges right now
in the Agile space is that I think we're learning the hard way that it really
is more about. It's about more than just software development.

00:21:29;16
- 00:21:48;29

Rick Morris: And
I appreciate that very much. We actually coined the term or heard a term called
Agile Theater which was are you. Are you doing Agile theater in Agile theaters
where you've done one of these four areas but you haven't focused on the other
three and so you're practicing Agile but you're really not Agile yet.

00:21:49;02
- 00:22:40;23

Scott Ambler: Exactly.
I even see that even within just the software development space where you'll
see a team that you had gotten there through Two day's scrum certification
training and they're great at running meetings now but they still don't have
the skills or even the understanding of how it all fits together. How do you
approach testing and data and documentation and how do you address regulatory
stop and architecture. All these all these other great things. And I think it's
and I think it's a serious challenge as well is that we in some ways and the Agile
world we've dumbed things down so much that we don't know. We've handed ended
up with these really commodity trading and these commodity consultants now
that. Don't have a lot to offer and I think it's a shame when we need to look
at the picture that even the bigger picture the development is pretty complex
let alone you know the organizational picture.

00:22:40;25
- 00:23:20;05

Rick Morris: So
when I'm speaking at a conference I do a slide where I talk about you know it's
not just as much as going Agile it's picking the right Agilest. So by
comparison I'm a pretty big dude and I said so if I want to be an Olympic
athlete I can’t hire this guy as my personal trainer which is the picture of a
goofy dude. And I say I can’t hire this guy is my nutritionist which was Ronald
McDonald. And I said you're just going to end up with another clown who's
telling you stuff they read but they don't know how to implement it so how do
organizations really test their Agilest to know that they're you know that
they're not going to come in and be a clown essentially.

00:23:21;03
- 00:26:21;02

Scott Ambler: Yeah
that's a really hard problem. Oh we run into that as well with our customers
and to the challenge is that the organization is new to Agile. Then how do you
know how do you how do you detect who a clown is. I'm sure Ron McDonald has
some great stories to tell about how big macs are very nutritious and fried.
And you know you know we're using the good fat now. We'll said it's healthy for
you. I'm sure the guy has got a wonderful story around that which sounds good.
And so how do you how do you do. How do you know. And I think that's my answer.
Quick answer that is you've got to you've got to stop parking your brain at the
door and you when you hear somebody claiming to be a certified master because
they've taken two entire days they stayed awake in a two day training course in
their check didn't bounce. You've got to say wait a minute are you really a
certified master after two days of training. No. Or you've taken four days of
training and now you're now you're a certified consultant. No you've taken four
days of training. Like when I say I'm you know I'm in my 50s and I know back in
the day we had to go to school for several years just to become a junior
programmer. And now here we are. And when things are way more complicated than
they used to be. And now in four days we can go off and become a certified
consultant and make lots of money doing it and get hired get hired for that. So
I think you know I got it's harsh but I think these organizations you've got to
step back and you got to do a reality check. And I think you've also got to
start saying Wait a minute you know I just hired this guy looks like a clown.
Sounds like a clown. Maybe he is a clown. And you know and he's pitching one
way of doing things. I think it's pretty obvious that if you walk into an
organization it's pretty clear that you can start looking at different teams
and they're working in different ways and they're the different people in
different situations so they get to work in different ways. So when you've got
these consultants that only know one way of doing things the official way of
you know method X that you get to say wait a minute maybe method X doesn't
apply to me or doesn't apply to all my teams or maybe I need method X but I
also need some parts of why some parts of Zed and a few others. And we we
thought we really mean to me we really need to think for ourselves and not get
taken for this by the you know get you know get the problem fixed quick schemes
and because you know I think you've also got to step back and realize Well it
took my organization decades to to get to where we are now. We're not going to
we're not going to change this this ship overnight and turn this ship overnight
and we're not going to fix all these problems in a few weeks or a few months.
It's going to be a multiyear journey and I think we need to do a reality check
on that one.

00:26:21;03
- 00:27:17;25

Rick Morris: I
think that's well said and I appreciate that insight. Is it difficult. So many
people can talk. Great game. So many people can you know read quotes of yours
and pass them off as theirs but that experience and I think the most poignant
point I completely agree with you is knowing more than one way to do it knowing
that there's multiple Agile delivery systems. And sometimes you've got to pick
and choose the best things that fit that process. And we're just not seeing
that out there. So we're going to take another break here in just a moment. But
I do want to urge everybody to go visit ScottAmbler.com And that's how you can get in touch with
Scott. That's how you can see what's going on. I'm sure they can get your books
there on that site as well is that correct. Yeah. Absolutely. Or some books.
Well we're paying some paying some bills with our sponsor and we'll be right
back here and The Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris.

00:30:22;07
- 00:30:25;15

Rick Morris: And
welcome back to The Work/Life Balance on this Friday afternoon.

00:30:25;15
- 00:30:48;04

Rick Morris: We're
visiting with Scott Ambler a cocreator of the discipline Agile framework and
Scott was going hit you on this. Before break. But now that we're back from
break what do you say especially as you're looking at Agile over the enterprise
where organizations all say we do not need project managers at all anymore
because we're going Agile.

00:30:49;14
- 00:30:55;00

Scott Ambler: Yes.
So I approached projects are not going to go away anytime soon.

00:30:55;00
- 00:31:29;19

Scott Ambler: I
think there's a couple of points. Projects are not going to go away anytime
soon. At the same time management certainly isn't. So in the Agile world we
certainly need management governance you know lightweight and effective of
course. But you assume that that's not going to go away. But also to be fair we
are seeing a movement away from the concept of projects particularly the I.T.
world. And for a bunch of reasons the you know there's overhead associated and
risk associated with projects projects are also a in many ways an artificial
funding mechanism.

00:31:38;10
- 00:34:09;27

Scott Ambler: So
we've got this stuff going on. But there's also this issue that you know
particularly in the Agile world we recognize that these systems the solutions
that we produce these these lines of business that we support are long running
sometimes in many years if not decades and evolve over time. Stuff like that.
So this artificial project idea where there's a start to finish and you get it
done and you move on simply doesn't fit that that that sort of a paradigm now. So
I think we need that. He said that you knowproject managers needed to manage the interaction with customers and you
know for you sold a big thing to a customer then you've probably got them from
a relationship manager or a project manager are organizing all of that.
Certainly that's a valid application for project managers but for us solution
development in the I.T. world and the bulk of the work that we do we need
management we need guidance we need leadership do we need project managers.
Maybe not. And I think this is this is a challenge in a lot of organizations
because it's not what the project managers want to hear and rightfully so and
so our approach is always you know you can add value and you can probably add
more value and have a more interesting position in the Agile world than in the
project management world. So if you want to redefine your your career and
hopefully do something better more interesting than the opportunity is
certainly there is if you want to remain a project manager that's fine that's a
valid career decision and because there isn't any project managers but not as
many. So Darwinism starts to kick in in those situations. So if you've got more
people than positions for project managers then you know we'll do the math but
we try and we do our best to help people help move people into into better and
more effective positions because know existing project managers have one heck
of a lot of value to add. Maybe not in the role of project manager but
certainly in other roles so I constantly invite them to maybe rethink their and
reposition themselves and rethink the direction their careers are going in

Rick Morris:
and to comment on that being a project manager for 20 years somebody who is
afraid of Agile at first and I think a lot of project managers are when they
first hear about it because of things like that.

00:34:09;27
- 00:35:09;08

Rick Morris: But
there's also a very negative connotation of project managers in the Agile world
such as you know project management is command and control whereas you know Agile
is not me. In fact when you go through training it sounds like project managers
are a bunch of Godzilla's that are just destroying towns and you have this
beautiful communal butterfly community where everybody just gets along and
hugs. But the point being is I think those ones that really were command and
control and were not following processes properly were checking that box just
to check a box and I bring value. Those are the ones that are Darwinism should push
out the ones that really can see the value of communication and communicating
upwards. Those are the ones that are going to exceed and excel into the
strategic organization to help manage the Agile practices and so I think you
know I concur with you. But a knee jerk reaction for an organization is say
let's fire all of our project managers who are going Agile is not you know is
not a good tact either.

00:35:09;08
- 00:35:35;15

Scott Ambler: No
though that would be a fundamental mistake I find to a lot of existing project
managers particularly ones who've been with an organization for years. They're
often very good candidates for being a product owner which is an incredibly
valuable role and it's a hard role to fill. So you know yeah firing all your
project managers because you're Agile would not be a good idea helping them
move and other roles would be a phenomenally good idea as any.

00:35:35;28
- 00:35:43;03

Rick Morris: So
why should organizations even look at a framework like discipline Agile. I mean
why even go adopt a framework like that.

00:35:43;22
- 00:42:33;24

Scott Ambler: Yeah
so there's several reasons. So a few a few fundamental ones are pretty easy to
observe now. Every business is a software business these days you'd be hard
pressed to find an organization where software was not absolutely critical to
their success whether management currently recognizes that might be the story
but certainly it seems to be the case. And so that's one point. We're also
seeing pretty much every industry is being disrupted now and new competitors
are moving into your market spaces. You may or may not also recognize that you
know this is blatant in some industries like financial for example is being
very clearly threatened by fintech and we're seeing the retail industry being
very clearly threatened by organizations such as Amazon and others. We're also
seeing in industries these Agile these lean organizations that dominate. And
you know if you if you were to put together a list of the you know the 20 most
the best companies that you admire. They're all very Agile and they have often
been doing as well for so long. They don't even talk about Agile anymore. It's
just they are Agile and they are they are lean they are Agile this is the way
they think this is the way they operate. So they say that's not your position
though is that the majority organizations are not yet Agile and they'll get
that many years before they get there. The DA framework provides a roadmap and
to help you get there and it recognizes that you know like I said before it
depends. Context counts and gradations different. Like if you look at all the
big apple life that the car manufacturers like new cars are a commodity you
know you know the automobile industry might not recognize that but you know
everybody owns a car and you can just sit in a car and you can you can drive it
and you know a few buttons might be in different places. But for the most part
cars are a commodity. You know many people own them sometimes they own several
cars on the road now I've got four wheels and a driver in the driver's seat and
all sorts of good stuff. So this commodity product. And the but these
organizations are all very different like Ford is very different than GM which
is very different than Toyota which is very different than Tesla and so on. So
here we have these companies that are basically commodity you know companies
producing commodity products and yet they're all very very different. And this
is as you can see I see the same thing about banking and insurance and retail
in many many other organizations right. You know a grocery store does it does
it really matter what brand of grocery store it is. You know you might have
different products than that. But for the most part a grocery store is a
grocery store and I'm going to go and buy food. It's all goodness. So but
anyway so the these organizations are being you know are being disrupted and
they're all they're all very different so one sought one process size does not
fit all. So it is an the observation earlier like we we we were talking about
how organizations are in some ways are panicking right now. They have to
change. And at the same time they don't really understand this process. They
might not really understand this Agile stuff and yet they're being asked to
make some important decisions. And as a result they hire clowns as opposed to
other people. But at the same point. So are profits that you get the exact same
issue on the profit side of things. One process does not fit all the processes
that would work well for Ford. I would probably be the kiss of death for Tesla
and vice versa. And we see this with the Toyota production system for example.
There's many examples where companies have gone into Toyota I understand all
this lean stuff and all these really interesting stuff that they do and then
they try to apply it in their own environments and it doesn't work out and
because there's no easy answer. And I think one of the reasons why Toyota is so
generous with allowing companies to come in and walk around and observe what
they're doing like even their competitors. There's a famous story that GM went
into Toyota years ago to see how they're working because Toyota fundamentally
knows it takes years to get to that level of productivity that they're asked
and that you just can't you know plug and play these processes. And these these
ways of working. And this is absolutely true the Agile world that you know your
your transformations are a journey that they're not they're not this quick
project that you can get done. And it takes many many years to improve. And it
varies every single time. So if you don't if you don't appreciate this and if
you don't then you need to hire coaches and people that have more than one tool
in their toolkit. If you're a one trick pony then you know yeah he's going to
put on a great pony show. But if you don't really need a great pony show and
it's not that good of a thing so we just want Agile we give people options and
we we walk you through decisions that you need to make we do in a lightweight
manner. But we walk you through these decision. And we give you choices and we
we say here's the tradeoff that you're making. So make the right choices for the
situation you find yourself in. And it's OK if you know team a makes a
different set of choices than team b because they're different people in
different situations yet having said that we provide a consistent governance
framework across all these teams. So now you know these organizations do not
have to inflict the same process on everybody which would be a fundamentally
bad idea. But instead they can say hey you know the teams each team does do the
right thing for the situation that you're in. He is effectively will possibly
be but is this consistent lightweight governance that that that we can do that
makes sense in different situations. So that way we can still you know guide
you and keep an eye on you and guide you and help you be successful. And that's
what good governance is all about. So I think there's a lot of very interesting
thinking and value in that it's an Agile framework. We do. We do the heavy
lifting on the process side of things. But it is for organizations that have
accepted this fundamental fact that you know it depends and you really do need
to know what you're doing and make good choices. And once you once you realize
that there's no easy answer that you you really need to think for yourself and
to learn and to improve over time. Once you accept that then that is when the
discipline Agile frame will really speak to you and will give you a significant
advantage in this overall approval process. Because it does spell a lot of your
a lot of the thinking that you're going to have to do at some point anyway.

00:42:35;09
- 00:43:03;15

Rick Morris: Absolutely.
So we're going to take our final break here we get one more segment left with
Mr. Scott Ambler he's going to be with us one more segment here on The
Work/Life Balance. But while we are away please visit ScottAmbler.com and check
out his Web site. And also you can find him on Twitter. Scott W. Ambler on
Twitter correct. That's right. We have Scott W. Ambler on Twitter. And of
course you can always follow me at @RickAMorris and we'll be right back after
this break.

00:46:02;02
- 00:46:06;22

Rick Morris: Back
to our final segment of The Work/Life Balance with Scott Ambler and Scott. You
know we were talking on the break there.

00:46:06;22
- 00:46:17;05

Rick Morris: There's
a new emergence of a theory which is being dubbed as hybrid project management
or hybrid Agile management which is a blending of the two practices how does
discipline Agile fit into that. Or do you recognize that at this point

00:46:17;05
- 00:47:26;05

Scott Ambler: yeah
actually just went with always been a hybrid. Our approach is we look for what
stuff that works and we we adopt ideas from a lot of Agile lean sources. Of
course I've been focusing a lot of that but there are still some great ideas in
the traditional world and in other spaces and we leverage those as well. Now
sometimes they don't quite work in some of those techniques don't quite work as
well with the Agile ones. But our approaches do you know have choices make
their make the best choices for you and the situation that you face and you
recognize there might be better ways that you can make but just not right now.
So. The so and it's valid to to adopt these techniques from yesteryear because
we need to recognize that a lot of the world still runs on systems built using
these older older strategies and I think you know you can't do a financial
transaction for example without hitting multiple systems that you know were
built using ancient techniques and technologies. So I think that you know take
an airplane or or things like that.

00:47:26;05
- 00:47:39;14

Scott Ambler: So
I think we need to you know be respectful of you know perhaps in the 60s and
70s and 80s that we we sort of knew what we were doing to0 Yeah.

00:47:39;29
- 00:48:09;23

Rick Morris: And
I think really for us you know hybrid is where it's coming out with people are
struggling you know should this be waterfall should this be Agile of course Agile
components in a waterfall project. There's a lot of people still struggling with
the thought pattern that I've got to be 100 percent completely Agile and I
believe you've said it best is that there's not one size fits all in. There's
got to be processes which you can you can dip and dab into other methodologies
to fit whatever it is the initiative that you're trying to do.

00:48:10;23
- 00:48:20;21

Scott Ambler: Yeah
I think the best you can situation your face and try to get better. I think
that's the that's what you've got to really be focused on.

00:48:21;29
- 00:48:28;13

Rick Morris: And
so finally we ask everybody that joins us here in The Work/Life Balance what is
some of the best advice you've ever received.

00:48:29;20
- 00:50:11;27

Scott Ambler: Yes
I think the best advice I ever got was to read widely read and read widely and
the goal is to be challenging. You know we think that my challenge what you
what you believe in and and also just open your mind up to go to New to new
worlds. I was very lucky early in my career that I had worked for a bank and
had a vice president to take me under his wing and mentor me along and that was
pretty much the first thing you told me was to read widely and I've been doing
doing my best on that ever since. And also I think to hang out with smart
people and people that will will challenge you and they're outside the scope of
your comfort zone. So I am I'm really lucky I got some friends in the in the
film industry and some friends in the physical architecture and landscape
architecture world and others in other spaces and it's really interesting to
hear some of the challenges they face but also because there's great
similarities but there's also differences. And it's just fascinating to me to
hear you hear about things that you know are probably fairly boring to them
because you're dealing with it day in day out but it's actually fascinating to
hear some of the things that go on in the film industry. Positive thing not so
much what we're hearing but lately certainly some very cool stuff. Based in
Toronto and I get to it there's a lot of filming going on here so there's a lot
of really cool stuff going on. But yeah reading widely hanging out with smart
people that will challenge challenge your beliefsI think those are the best
advice I've ever gone.

00:50:11;27
- 00:50:13;29

Rick Morris: Do
you have any closing comments for the audience.

00:50:15;10
- 00:51:21;11

Scott Ambler: Yeah
I think you know they'd like to thank everybody for taking time to listen.
That's what I always advise people to just observe. Step back and observe
what's going on and really sort of you know think for yourself and if there's
an easy answer it's probably the wrong one for you. And it really is a hard
hard hard world that we're in. And there are no easy solutions anymore. We’re
in a complex world dealing with hard heart problems and a changing environment
and we need to be flexible we need to always be sharpening our saw you know
that quote Stephen Covey and do do the best you can to learn experiment learn
help others learn share your knowledge try to get as much knowledge from others
as you can. So be collaborative. Be very sharing. Be very respectful and be
humble. We can't possibly know everything. I've got a young daughter and she's
at that age right now where she she believes she knows everything and you know
so it's fun to watch. But yeah. Interesting learning lessons coming our way.

00:51:21;12
- 00:51:30;20

Rick Morris: But
fun to watch so I'm going to go on the complete side note tangent here but I
play that game with my kids when they start to do that.

00:51:30;20
- 00:51:42;08

Rick Morris: Now
you say well you know dad knows everything. Just ask him though say Do you know
you know how many times you have to travel across the earth to do this. And I
go yep I know that one.

00:51:42;08
- 00:52:06;21

Rick Morris: What's
next. Every time. Give me the next question. We got it. Scott I certainly
appreciate you spending some time with us on this Friday afternoon and sharing
with our audience all about discipline Agile. And again you can visit Scott at
ScottAmbler.com or you can hit them up on Twitter. @ScottWAmbler says Scott
thank you so much for being a part of the show today.

00:52:06;21
- 00:52:09;25

Scott Ambler: I
think it was great time. I'm looking forward to coming back.

00:52:10;15
- 00:53:25;20

Rick Morris: Absolutely.
We'll have you back Anytime Scott. Open invitation for sure. So next week we've
got Todd Nesloney coming back on the show and if you guys didn't hear his first
interview that we did with him I mean he's an incredible educator somebody
we're so excited to have back. They just released a book called Stories from
web which he talks about and teased when he was on the show before. But we
can't wait to have Todd back on the 16th. I'll be doing the show live from the
John Maxwell certification and then on February 23 we'll have to Coopersmith
who's going to be on the show with us as well. And then a big announcement for
me. We just locked this one down. It's going to be in March but March 23rd
we're going to have Rob Tomset on the line and for those of you that have heard
me speak or have watched me ever do any kind of presentation I've quoted a book
that goes all the way back to 2002 I believe called Radical project management
where it says projects fail because of context. Not content. in that one line
changed a lot of my career and how I focused on what I was doing. So we cannot
wait to have Rob on the show as well. So we hope that you will hang out with us
for future episodes right here on the Voice America business network you've
been listening to Rick Morris and The Work/Life Balance.

R2 Consulting, LLC

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About Me

Rick A. Morris, PMP, is an ITIL Practitioner, consultant, author, mentor, and owner of R2 Consulting. Rick is an accomplished project manager and public speaker. His appetite for knowledge and passion for the profession makes him a sought after speaker at PMI chapters, civic organizations, and a frequent guest lecturer at local universities. He holds the PMP (Project Management Professional), MPM (Masters of Project Management), OPM3, Six Sigma Green Belt, MCITP, MCTS, MCSE, TQM, ATM-S, ITIL, and ISO certifications. Rick has worked for organizations such as GE, Xerox, and CA and has consulted to numerous clients in a wide variety of industries including financial services, entertainment, construction, non-profit, hospitality, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing. Rick has two books (“The Everything Project Management Book” and “Project Management That Works!”) that were released in 2008. Taking the experience of his youth and blending it with the knowledge he attained throughout his career, Rick has been able to inspire and mentor many project managers. His blend of real world experience and down to earth delivery style makes his passion for the profession contagious.

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